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NY Times Nonsense***But the country’s changing demographics, the civil rights movement and a push for multiculturalism in many quarters mean that white Americans are now confronting the prospect of a nation that is no longer built solely around their own identity.*** Herein lies the KEY. “White” in this context is NOT racial. It is unfortunate that the truth is still kept hidden. The claim that RACE is the source is libelous. And even those who would agree with that are wrong. It is the *culture* of WASPs that is under attack and which is defended by “White” nationalists. WASP culture (American culture) was the culture into which all immigrants aspired to assimilate: even southern African-Americans made their migration north in order to achieve their place in the American culture. The relentless attack on the ideal of a unicultural nation-state has finally brought its reaction. The two terms of Obama have played their role. After eight years of AG Holder, and Lynch, with endless accusations of racism, sexism, hetero-ism, English-ism etc and so on, we said ENOUGH. WE no longer will flinch when our defense of OUR culture is predictably libeled as racist. Why is it that Dr. Ben Carson is wholly accepted and beloved by many of us? Is he a scraping and bowing “Uncle Tom”? No. He is a successful man in terms of our culture. If people are beguiled by Cultural Apartheid ideology and fail to prepare themselves to compete in OUR culture their whine of “racism” as excuse is NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE. What is American Culture if not the culture of the WASPs? It is this culture that bore the fruit of Liberty: Economic and Political. So long as OUR culture is under attack WE will resist. This is not racism. This is patriotism.It is not racist to support one’s own culture. It is human nature.Pat Buchanan, a proud Irish-Catholic certainly NOT an ASP though he is White. If Pat and the many Catholic-Americans are glad to assimilate into WASP culture why is it considered “racist” to expect others to do the same? Trumpism is nothing but Buchaninism. And so what?

The winner of France’s center-right presidential primary, François Fillon, in October. Mr. Fillon has called for lifting sanctions on Russia and for partnering with Moscow to curtail immigration and terrorism.French Election Hints at a European Shift Toward Russia
More Putin-originating Fake News? Or have the MSM outlets been as blind in Europe as in America. The antagonism against Russia stopped making sense when the Berlin Wall fell. Russia is a Great Power. Reality is real. There is not a zero-sum game between “the West” and Russia. We are witnessing the final restoration of a pre-WW1 European balance of power. Remember, America is over here, not “Over There”. Though powerful, Russia is not a hegemon in a vacuum. France is a nuclear power, and Germany a major economic power. A Franco-German alliance is capable of balancing Russia without US assistance. America became great, because we stood aloof between our Oceanic moats. America needs to return to George Washington’s maxims regarding alliances and entanglements with European powers. A US-UK trade treaty and alliance should become the heart of our relationship with Europe. Our strategic interests are in keeping Russian naval and air bases out of western Scandinavia including Denmark. This is in parallel with UK’s interests. Why allow Putin the power to destroy NATO after NATO’s successful post-WW2 run? Let us declare victory and rethink our interests. We are not strategically effected by Russian resurgence in the Black Sea, nor the Baltic. Russian expansion in Estonia for instance will fracture NATO. Paris and Berlin will NOT countenance WW3 in Europe for the sake of the former provinces of Czarist Russia, and the USSR. Rather than leave the initiative in Putin’s hands, we should call a meeting with NATO, (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and announce our willingness to defend only those nations with littorals on the actual North Atlantic! And only with their full cooperation. They are NOT doing us a favor. (If push comes to shove, which I doubt, UK, Iceland and Norway must be defended.)

We have in this election a Government Party vs. an American Party. Giving explicit control over the election to the Government’s new domestic security force is the fruition of the Civil Rights Act’s Long March through the Constitutional federal system.

In the federal republic described in the Constitution, we are primarily citizens of our States. There is no elective position that is voted for by generic Citizens of the USA.

The take over of elections by the Orwellian abomination named “Homeland Security” is the final usurpation of the Government Party over America.

THIS election is between the Government Party and an American Party. And the feral gub is to be the referee? How stupid they think us to be!

HRClinton represents the entire ecosystem that has evolved in Washington DC since WW2.

DC before WWII was a smallish southern city centered around its one industry: the Federal Government. Until air travel became as commonplace as railroad travel, and before air conditioning, DC was an isolated, hot humid town that appealed to few Americans . Its stifling summer was an occupational hazard.

When the Federal government had little to offer private enterprises, “having a man in Washington” was not considered necessary.

When under guise of the Civil Rights Act the Federal government empowered itself to set the terms of all private business it was as if a crack in the sea floor created a Thermal Vent. This energy source gave rise to its own ecosystem. DC grew commensurately with its claiming more and more control over private enterprises. From EPA to OSHA from EEOC to IRS the Federal government created webs of power that ramify like a second vascular system into the smallest niches of the economic ecosystem.

The Federal government was to be a neutral venue where legitimate special interests would jostle one another like the uncountable molecules in a gas. All internal chaos is summated into a stable pressure.

When the numbers of people employed in DC and in its worldwide web reached a critical mass they became an interest in and of themselves! This is the Government Party: consisting of the Democrat Party in full and the insider cronies of the GOPe.

This election is not between the Dems and GOP! No. It is the first election between the reigning Government party and the rising resistance! It may well be the last if HRC wins.

Elevating the Department of Homeland Security, a paramilitary domestic police force to “secure” this election is to put a pack of wolves to guard a sheep pen!

This is an article in the NY Times Aug. 8, 2016. HERE. It purports to be a handwringing mea culpa confessing the predicament of the tortured soul of the professional Journalist in reporting on Donald Trump.
Why is there an issue? There is an issue because the very philosophic underpinnings of J-School make opposition to Trump a baked-in conclusion. How so? I shall attempt to explain.
The Golden Rule of J-School is OBJECTIVITY. The Journalist presumes his view is objective. But to be truly objective one must be in a vantage point above the level upon which the news happens.
J-school is the ultimate expression of the post-Modern education philosophy. And that is the effort to demonstrate that all societies are built upon arbitrary cultural symbols, whether sounds, letters, pictures, body language, facial expression and so on. But since J-school is essentially a Western phenomenon and in our case an American one it directs its de-constructive lens upon American culture.
Objectivity is the attempt to perceive the arbitrariness of the symbols of culture. It is like trying to hear English as sounds devoid of meaning. To attempt to do so is frightening for if one succeeded it might be impossible to come back! Or, try looking at our written language as a series of squiggles and lines. Impossible.
Yet what is culture other than arbitrary actions, sounds, patterns of group movements? J-school is where students go to complete their self de-privileging program. To compare New Guinean war steps with the ballet: both merely arbitrary movements conveying cultural information, might be true. But so what?
A graduate of such a culturally-self-abnegating program will indeed be unable or unwilling to concede any superiority of one set of arbitrary cultures over another.
A Nation is a People sharing a culture, which is a language, a common literature, a common sense of history etc. Our American political culture has been based on the Lockean principles in vogue in Britain at the time of our origin. In Locke’s view humans are capable of self-assembly. We create an organic culture over time. To better protect our rights in a more complicated society we form governments. We are not naturally at war ourselves against all, as Thomas Hobbes would have us.Here is the key to the journalists’ inability to report on Trump. Nations are Peoples with Cultures. Cultures are based upon arbitrary signs and symbols. Once deconstructed it is like Humpty Dumpty! It is as if one were able to hear English as merely the inherently meaningless sounds which it is, and not be able to get back!
How could graduates of a deliberate self-inflicted cultural lobotomy fail to see Trump as a dinosaur? “Make America Great Again” does not compute. They would require multiple layers of quotes to write that! But Trump asks DO WE HAVE A COUNTRY OR NOT?
Are we a Nation, a People with a particular culture (within a range of cultures, yes) and a particular language, with a particular sense of private property, and Rights?

John Locke said a People self-organize to produce an organic society and only much later is formal legalistic government created. 99% of our daily lives proceeds without recourse to the legal systems. That vast preponderance of the social glue is vested in the culture. The De-Construction of a particular culture by demonstrating its basis in arbitrary symbols is not compatible with “having a country”!

This explains why Journalists are leftists, and why leftists are totalitarian. Normal societies operate on a subliminal level, as stated above. 99% of our activities and interactions are culturally determined. Rarely do we require legal opinions in our daily lives! However, once cultural norms are dismissed as “merely” arbitrary understandings what remains to counter the centrifugal force of individuals devoid of cultural cohesion?Only the State remains. And in a republic unmoored from a Constitution restricting the arena in which majoritarianism presides, the NATION is subjugated to a purely a POLITICAL entity. When all human interactions are considered political… that is Totalitarianism!

Why are “protectionism, isolationism and nativism” presumed to be pejorative? The Republican Party was the party of protection. Our manufacturing grew behind tariffs to make us a continental superpower. These same industries were available to become the arsenal of Democracy. Growing nations have protectionist trade policies. Grown nations seek Free Trade. And Free Trade is supported in the grown nation only until the rest of the competition is equally grown.

When Britain was the industrial superpower it stood for Free Trade. Since her factories produced superior goods more efficiently than any other, it was in her interest to have Free Trade.

Post WWII America stood alone as the industrial superpower. Of course the American post-War order would be for Free Trade!

The post-War order ended when Germany was reunified, and the USSR collapsed. Free Trade now benefits the nations with the cheapest labor, leaving American workers in a race to the bottom!

Protectionism is NOT a bad word. It is neither good or bad. At times it is advantageous and at other times it is not. The Misesians have elevated Free Trade to a moral necessity. That is absurd.

Isolationism is what George Washington recommended as the best course for America. And nothing has changed. Behind two oceans, alone in the world in being totally self-sufficient in every category: agriculture, manufacturing, finance, defense, market size and now, once again in energy, we have no natural enemies in the world. Since WW2 we have been told we must forever be in a state of war readiness if not actual war. Before WW2, America was normally at peace. “Security” was not an issue. Yes, I am aware that ICBM’s and Submarine Launched Cruise Missiles have removed some of the defensive value of our two oceanic moats. But our deterrence from within our own borders would suffice to dissuade any nation from daring to strike.

Nations are not like people. They are amoral, self-interested and NO ALLIANCE survives a loss of common interests. We do not “owe” old allies eternal gratitude. Especially since they were the ones saved by our nation. Old enemies become new allies, like Japan and Germany. Why must we be married to them? We have no fundamental interests at odds with Russia’s. Nor they with us. We have zero interest in the borders of Ukraine. I think it would be quite easy to make an agreement with Putin that we stay out of the Black Sea and Eastern Baltic Sea and they stay out of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. It may well be that having Britain and Israel As well as Australia and NZ as allies serves our interests in forward defense. Or not, but the concept of our owing eternal alliance with any nation over our own self-interests is ludicrous.

Nativism is merely a snide way of saying the obvious. Think of what it means to call “nativism” a bad thing. In terms of Social Contract a nation (a particular people, with a particular culture, language, history, worldview, literature etc.) creates a government in order to protect its citizens rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A Nation has a government for its benefit, a government doesn’t have a nation for the purpose of greater power. If not FOR THE PEOPLE for whom is the government? To say that a government that exists strictly for the benefit of its creators is a bad thing…. well that is ludicrous as well!

The NY Times today (July 17, 2016) ran an Op-Ed by a certain Peter Wehner, who presumes to be a long-suffering GOP apologist. His was a voice of rebuttal to the constant chorus of libels and lies promoted by the mainstream media. And of course the NY Times is at the head of any list of leftist propaganda organs. So it is with high irony that they chose to publish this Sunday Op-Ed.
Wehner July 17, 2016 NY Times Reptile’s Op-Ed
In fact this staunch defender of the GOP has so often appeared in the Times Op-Eds that they should hire him as the Official House Republican. Despite the title he would still be referred by the J-school geniuses around the Perrier water cooler as the the “GOPher”.

His opening paragraph says it all:

FOR my entire adult life I have listened to the invective leveled against the Republican Party by liberals: It is a party sustained by racist appeals, composed of haters and conspiracy nuts, indifferent to the plight of the poor and the weak, anti-woman.
Now, I do know the feeling he is expressing. I am a Jew who defended Mel Gibson when his film The Passion evoked charges of anti-Semitism. No, no, I insisted, the film cast the entire Jerusalem establishment as culpable in its rejection and crucifixion of Jesus. So when old Mel was picked up DWI and was videoed giving a drunk exhortation that demonstrated his Jew-hatred, I felt the fool. But this is not that.
Unlike the Gibson rant, nothing that Mr. Wehner rebutted is the case with Donald Trump!

Point by point
• A party sustained by racist appeals. Not so. The “racist appeals” is a phrase of rhetoric. This is the so-called dog-whistle, a common accusation of the Left. It is a presumption of telepathy! If one supports a principle, the actualization of which might have a negative effect on some element of a “targeted” minority ipso facto the idea is Racist. An example of this rhetorical ploy is in regard to the “racist criminal justice system”. If more of a particular minority are convicted of crimes and sentenced to prison that somehow proves “Racism” is at work. Therefore calls for Law and Order are secret code for “If elected I will work towards imprisoning even more of said minority!”
Same with the simple truth that we cannot afford the social welfare programs we now fund, let alone any new ones. With your Lefty-Lu secret decoder ring you can read “I support starving and denying health care to said minority group”.
So …that’s it with a party sustained by racist appeals. Sorry Wehner.

• A party of “haters”: Again an example of Leftist telepathy. If it is my principle that governments at every level lack a legitimate role in the transactions between rational adults, then “I hate” transgendered folks because I will not use government power to coerce private businesses to accommodate their peculiar needs. Again only psychic Leftists can perceive that ultra-sonic dog-whistle that is allegedly used to encode “If elected I will make it illegal to be a transgendered person!” Why? Because “Like you, my fellow Americans I hate queers!” Oh Wehner!
• “Conspiracy Nuts” two words “twenty-eight pages”. The deliberate cover up of Saudi involvement in 9/11 has been kept from us these fifteen years. The “vast right-wing conspiracy’s” persecution of the Clinton Crime Family is hardly a lunatic’s ravings. And the actual facts surrounding Obama’s birth may never be determined. His social security number is in a series of numbers used for births in CT at that time. Not Hawaii! Who funded the young slacker Barry Sotero?
• Indifferent to the plight (does anyone other than Leftist rhetoricians use that word?) of the poor and the weak. Uh oh, still another presumption of the clairvoyant SJW. (No, not “single Jewish woman” as I had first guessed, but “Social Justice Warrior”!). If one understands the theory of the Social Contract it is self-evident that we create government in order to protect our private property, our lives and our liberty. The Left claims some share of ones private property is somehow “owed” to those who are in some official plight. The illusion of legitimacy iscreated by legally defining some arbitrary income level as a “plight”. It is made to appear legal and official as private property is taken away by a third party. And it is their beneficence (the third party’s of course) to donate the “surplus” to alleviate “official plights”. A more honest system would do away with the middle-woman (are there any men left in the middle management of Public Welfare bureaucracies?) and have anyone who feels “plighted” assess how much of the “donor’s” wealth is required to remove said plight. And of course he would be “entitled” to it. But if one states that “a need is not a claim” she is instantly charged and convicted of bigotry! Merely speaking truth to self-righteousness is a Hate Crime. Charity is a virtue. Theft is not. Charity is a choice. Other than those physically incapable of providing for themselves, no one is owed anything. Standing for Private Property does not make one uncaring. Most people will be more generous to those who do not come with a gun making demands based on their “plight”!
• Anti-Woman is what those who believe fetuses are private property call those who do not. It is amusing in a sick way that those with the least sense of other’s private property are rabid about this one particular item. That which ought be private property is not. That which ought not be, is! This perhaps is corollary to a major principle of Post-Modernism: That which was a matter of morality is a matter of taste. And that which was a matter of taste is now one of morality.How in the world does Mr. Wehner accuse Donald Trump of these “thought-crimes”, “thought-crimes” that are defined by the Left? No, the question is how can he parrot Leftist talking points without acting the fool? Answer: he cannot.
The selection of Trump by the primary voters has made Wehner repent of his defense of the GOP? Lead follow or get out of the way! The American (and British) people have had a belly full of elitists spinning intilekchuel rationales for irrational national suicide.
The fact that the Times could print such crap as:

But it is fair to say that there existed in the Republican Party repulsive elements, people who were attracted to racial and ethnic politics and moved by resentment and intolerance rather than a vision of the good. This group was larger than I ever imagined, and at important moments the Republican Party either overlooked them or played to them. Some may have been hoping to appeal to these elements while also containing and moderating them, to sand off the rough edges, to keep them within the coalition but not allow them to become dominant. But the opposite happened. The party guests took over the party.…

as the above, without one example in support of such vile claims is par for them. What dripping elitism! We are merely “party guests” who, took over the party?

Why are we so despised? I can understand his position without castigating his morality. But as with the Left, here is an inability to fundamentally disagree with someone without attacking their motives.
I suspect that under most of Wehner’s hate speech is an idealistic belief in Free Trade. If he supports that, fine, I do not. I am not more moral than him because of that. I presume he is not in favor of the furthering of the Rust Belt, or the marginalization of English-speaking American-Americans. He has his ideologic reasons for Free Trade corporate globalism. Although I suppose it is possible that he is selfishly fixated on the rising value of his stock portfolio. But I am not clairvoyant.
The ideologues claim Free Trade is corollary to liberty. Yet, the Constitution gives Congress the power to set trade policies with foreign countries. So, if he believes that national borders are irredeemably illiberal and that goods and labor must pass freely it is he who is a radical. The Party of Lincoln was the Party of Trade Protection ! So who is the guest of whom?

Free Trade has caused the destruction of the middle-sized industrial cities of America. And with them went the well-paying jobs that allowed the average man to own a home, support a family and save for retirement. A man today without college education in the arts of rhetoric which is what most of a post HS education consists of has little chance of a “middle class life”. The full time commitment and ambition of the professional is not for everyone. Some folks would rather have a life.

Those cities are now abandoned rusting ruins rotting in the center of suburban sprawl that itself is under attack. (Climate, you know. Wink.)

The Black underclass has paid the price. So an idea, the actualization of which will have an adverse effect on a targeted minority might well be said to be Free Trade. But of all the arguments against Free Trade I have yet to hear anyone claim it to be based in racism! Why the hell not?
“Woman’s issues” is only your side’s dog-whistle. It is all about abortion. Actually Trump is not a Bible-thumping pro-lifer, not an absolutist, from fertilization to birth. Would you have been equally appalled by every other GOP candidate? They all had to kiss the pro-life ring. But which candidate would Wehner have supported? It is crass hypocrisy to spread the Democrat lie that Trump is anti-woman! If Jeb! was running and he made strong statements against abortion would Wehner have called him “anti-Woman”?

Intolerance. Too much is said of tolerance as a virtue. In immunology a state of tolerance means no recognition of what is non-self. AIDS is a state of tolerance. Why should Americans tolerate that which NO NATION IN HISTORY has tolerated? I can think of no nation that has voluntarily allowed a migration of demographic proportion. In history, nations were displaced by invaders after they no longer could hold them off. Have we lost some war at our borders?
Why must we tolerate America becoming Latinized?
Latinos have a pre-modern culture. Catholic majority nations are often poorly governed, and impoverished. Most American Catholics are descended from Catholics who might just as easily have migrated to Latin Argentina or Chile. But they recognized that it was America that held a future for their children. Why? So too in Muslim majority nations, when given a chance the people will emigrate to a Western nation. And within the West it is the Protestant areas in northwestern Europe they truly seek. With Britain the golden isle, the ultimate destination no wonder BREXIT. This is not to say that the modern religiosity is relevant. This is not to say Americans are all Protestant! I am not. We are not. But, the Middle Class culture of the Anglo-American world is where we began. Our culture is steeped in Reformed Protestant ethics. We are as fish in its water.
Why should we have immigrants foreign to the main thrust of our history and culture come here in numbers that will render us minorities in the lands our fathers carved out of the wilderness. Oh but we cannot say that without some caveats to the Indians. Let it be understood once and for all, European diseases destroyed Native American societies. We had no superiority over them. The force that allowed the timing of plagues and peoples laid out a highway into this New World. But what makes anyone think that we earned the ease and wealth we take for grante. If not for the “just-in-time” coincidences there’d be no America. Too many take it all for granted.

The Don asks “Do we have a country or not?” He means “a nation”: are we a Nation or not? If so, there is an American culture. There is an American historical narrative. There is an American literature. A rule-of-thumb: when “American” is placed in quotes beware the Post-Modern elitist.

Mr. Cohen has no business teaching the Constitution, neither by virtue of knowledge nor possession of a mind capable of rational chains of thought, i.e. logic.

His opening argument is aimed at dethroning the Constitution as secular writ. By establishing that a series of amendments were “required” to improve it, he means to prove that there is no papal-like infallibility attached to it. I am offended at his presumption that I am an idiot. Few proponents of the 2nd Amendment are vigilant because of their belief in an infallible Constitution (and Bill of Rights). Is it possible that he expects some of us to think: “Hmm, there were changes made over the years. Therefore it is not written in stone. And so yeah, OK lets just do away with the 2nd Amendment.”

IOW we do not cherish the 2nd Amendment because it is included in the secular writ of the Constitution! We cherish the Constitution because it guarantees that our government is ours! Unlike all the rest of the governments in the world at that time, ours is conceived by the People, for the purposes of the People, and belongs to the people. This Nation has created its own government.
Looking back across the Atlantic the framers saw Kingdoms, and Tyrannies that presumed to own the nations they ruled. Not so here! Our Nation, America owns the government. In fact there was a Nation before there was a Constitution! The nation established a government. In the philosophy of John Locke we Americans made an explicit social contract. Locke wrote of implicit social contracts, as theoretical outgrowths of his concept of human nature: as being capable of spontaneous self-organization based upon rational individuals surrendering some small portion of the absolute liberty that would be present in a “state of nature”. For it is rational to give up some small part of liberty in order to establish a society that would recognize the right of private property, freedom from coercion, and support a common defense against criminals, would-be tyrants and invading nations.
David Cohen is wrong when he presumes that we who stand by our God given rights do so because we believe the Constitution is revealed wisdom, from on high. His examples like the Articles and Amendments dealing with the Vice-President selection, or how the Senate is to be chosen are intramural affairs. They do not effect the scope of the Constitution, but merely alter how it functions in those areas to which it is limited. Those are issues contained within the fabric of the Constitution. They do not establish or protect the Constitution itself.It is the Second Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights that protects the Constitution, or better: protects the nation from a government that exceeds the scope to which the Constitution allowed it.
I had planned to demonstrate Cohen’s faulty grip on American history as well as his poor reasoning. Lets see how it goes. If it becomes too tangential I will let it go.
It is impossible that someone who teaches the Constitution could with a straight face write: “Much more profoundly, the Framers and the Constitution were wildly wrong on race. They enshrined slavery into the Constitution ….. They also blatantly wrote racism into the Constitution by counting slaves as only 3/5s of a person for purposes of Congressional representation.”
Every high school graduate once knew that the 3/5th’s rule was a compromise between the Free States and the Slave States. Since slaves obviously wouldn’t be voting, including them into the Slave states’ population served to increase the numbers of Representatives and Electoral College members it would have in the Federal Government. The slaves should not have been counted as any part of a person. Since the slavocracy treated slaves as chattel property it was no different than a demand to count horses towards a state’s population in terms of electoral power! If David S. Cohen is unaware of this concept it is impossible for him to be a teacher of the Constitution. But far worse than a fool is a deliberate liar who knows the truth but seeks to hide it or twist it to fit his agenda. No. No way is Cohen unaware of the history of the 3/5th’s rule and its meaning.
Seems as if I cannot let it go. Paragraph upon paragraph of flawed arguments based upon faulty factoids roll down the page of Rolling Stone.
“There are others flaws that have been fixed … and still other flaws that have not yet been fixed (such as about equal rights for women and land-based representation in the Senate), but the point is the same — there is absolutely nothing permanently sacrosanct about the Founders and the Constitution. They were deeply flawed people, it was and is a flawed document,…”We get it. The founders were deeply flawed. And would the David S. Cohen of 1789 be a snide indoctucated rhetorician or a hunchbacked bookworm at the local Talmudic study hall? Surely this 1789 version of the brilliant teacher of the Constitution would have a rather constricted and provincial worldview. But at least one of ancestors got sick enough of the musty book smells and occasional pogroms to sell everything and take boat to the New World. I think that the great Abrahamic grandparent who boldly went forth from Ur would smack young David upside his head!
I am at a loss to read that the issue of equal rights for women has not been fixed.
It is also presumptuous to glibly describe the Senate as a flawed institution in that it is “land based”. I had to click that link to even know to what he referred. Turns out that this “teacher of the Constitution” is either ignorant of the Connecticut Compromise or chooses to not teach it. Anyone with a fleeting acquaintance with the debates and issues of the Constitutional Convention would know that in the Framers’ mind was the fear of democracy untrammeled. The term “democrat” at that time was pejorative. The Framers, unlike our “teacher” were extremely well read on the history of republics; from Greece to Rome to the city-states of Florence and the Cantons of Switzerland. Their bête noir was a popularly elected tyrant. The masses, being uneducated, and thus defenseless against clever rhetoric are vulnerable to being manipulated by power-seeking individuals. Whether the motive is “altruistic utopianism” or naked corruption majoritarianism is a gateway to tyranny.
The House of Representatives was where popularly elected men met to initiate any spending bill. This branch was closest to the direct will of their constituents. The fear of mobocracy prompted a more sedate Senate. Originally the Senators were similar to ambassadors from their state to the Federal Congress. They were to be creatures of their State Legislatures: selected by their State Government and Governors and sent to Washington DC. The Senate thus functioned as a brake on the popular enthusiasms that could sweep through the masses. Since each state had two Senators, the smaller states such as Delaware, and Rhode Island were protected from having their voices drowned out in the proportional numbers of the larger states in the House of Representatives.
Put simply the two functions of the Senate were to represent the States as the semi-sovereign entities that existed prior to the Constitution and to oppose untrammeled majoritarianism. In 1914 the Progressive Wilson shepherded through the 17th Amendment that removed from the State governments any role in the selection of Senators and made them also popularly elected. And apparently this further erosion of the levy designed to channel the majoritarian tide is not enough! No, now the complaint is that the less populated states (mainly rural, mainly NOT the magnet for immigrants, mainly Christian, mainly conservative) have the same representation in the Senate as the more populated liberal states such as California, New York, etc. DOH! That was why the Framers, deeply flawed as they were, created a bicameral legislature in the first place!
As one can see Cohen’s flawed arguments are built upon piles of stinking misinformation.
Can I muster the strength to read and comment on another of his paragraphs? See below. If nothing is below I have had enough.
Maybe one more:“Gun-rights advocates like to make this all about liberty, insisting that their freedom to bear arms is of utmost importance and that restricting their freedom would be a violation of basic rights.”

Not so fast. Most defenders of the 2nd Amendment believe that it is not merely the right to bear arms that is threatened, but it is the right specifically given in the Declaration of Independence of the citizens to rebel and overthrow a tyrannical government.

It seems that the more the government acts tyrannical in some ways the more the urge to disarm the citizenry. Yes, one citizen with a semi-automatic can conceivably in conjunction with like-minded local citizens in a militia stand up against a Federal Government that has thoroughly militarized itself against the people. When Federal paramilitary units of the Department of Agriculture (of Agriculture??) roll up in armored Humvees wearing Kevlar and carrying fully automatic weapons to bust a dairy farmer selling unpasteurized milk, the ability to stand up to that must not be dismissed.
Notice whenever a mass shooting occurs the Gun-Grabbing machine is ready to roll. Within hours, pre-written speeches, resolutions, and all manner of hyped outrage are unleashed by the lackey-media. None lackier than RS!
“We need a mass movement of those who are fed up with the long-dead Founders’ view of the world ruling current day politics.”

By God that sounds like treason! Any University teaching radical overthrow of Constitutional limited government should be banned from being eligible for student loans.

Anti-Zionists that are not evidently motivated against other “oppressor” nations must be considered anti-Semites.
It would seem to an observer from a distant planet that the Arab people living within the borders of Israel are the sole people without a nation state.
The vociferousness of the BDS movement (to boycott, divest and sanction Israel) is often deafening. Their stridency has made Jewish students on college campuses fearful for their very physical safety. The anti-Zionists claim to harbor neither anti-Semitic nor anti-Jewish sentiment.
I believe the anti-Zionists are in fact anti-Semites. The only question is whether all of them are honest with themselves about it.
I propose an experiment to help distinguish between the Anti-Zionists and the anti-Semites. If the anti-Zionists are truly only opposed to what they consider the unjust treatment of the Arabs they refer to as “Palestinians” then their sense of moral outrage would be equally aroused at the “plight” of other minority populations deprived of “all important” nation state status.
The “Palestinians” are not by a long shot the only minority people with aspirations of nationhood! They are the unique in that their alleged “oppressors” are Jews.Anti-Zionists that are not evidently motivated against other “oppressor” nations must be considered anti-Semites.
The following list (from Wiki) includes those whose oppressors are not Jews. The silence on campuses and in the UN is deafening.
The following list (from Wiki) includes those whose oppressors are not Jews. The silence on campuses and in the UN is deafening.Tamils, a majority in southern India, on Sri Lanka they are a Hindu minority in a Buddhist majority state. They are concentrated in the northwest of the island and are denied their own state.Kurds, an ancient people. Saladin was a Kurd. Some Kurds believe they are the descendents of the Medes. Whatever their ancient history is, they are a stateless people spread through eastern Turkey, Northern Syria and Iraq, and Northwestern Iran. They have been persecuted for their refusal to surrender their national aspirations.SindiSikhsBalochi Baluchistan is that region of Pakistan that bulges westward from the Indus and separates Afghanistan from the Indian Ocean. There has been a low-grade chronic smoldering drive for independence from Pakistan.Occitan occupied by France.Andalusians occupied by Spain.Uyghur are ethnically similar to Tajiks. They are Muslims in there far west of China. Ethnic Hans, the majority Chinese have been “encouraged” to move into this region in order to dilute the Islamic presence. There has been significant bloodshed and persecution of the Uyghurs by the Peoples Republic of China.Catalonians occupied by Spain; like Andalusia and Basque land.

Catalonian Flag BDS Spain?

Circassians an unrecognized nationality within Russia.Tatars see above.Quebecois, are the descendents of the original French colonists in Canada. When is Canada going to start their peace process towards a two state solution?Walloons in BelgiumChechens, Russia again.Hawaiians: Hawaii was a sovereign kingdom before its state was overthrown by Americans.

Hawaii Flag

Sami (Laplanders)Faroes
Corsica, France, again.

Corsica

WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE? WHERE IS THE CRITICISM? WHERE ARE THE BOYCOTTS?OR IS OUTRAGE ONLY FOR JEWS?